As You Like It
Jun. 1st, 2009 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI did not like it.
I'm trying to sort out which bits I disliked were performance and which were Shakespeare.
For the writing, there were some great bits I've heard quoted out of context often, some good banter, lots of promising stuff with 'Ganymede', and some interesting politics around the edges. Unfortunately there was also a lot of really annoying songs, speeches nobody did anything with that seemed to have twice as many lines in them as they really needed, and politics that got set up without ever getting tied off. I mean, they start this thing with a dukedom usurped and people being done out of their inheritance and some attempted murder, and then everyone buggers off to the forest and sings until all the bad guys turn out to have turned into good guys, off stage, when nobody was looking. Also, a god turns up. For no readily apparent reason.
Performance killed most of the bits that would otherwise have been good. I watched the 1978 BBC version, and it had 1978 pacing and ACTing. There were two actors in the whole thing I'd be happy to watch again. Everyone else was at best not doing television. Also, I know he's writing in poetry, but if you HAVE to STRESS each ALTerNATing WORD it do get just a bit wearisome. There's ways and ways, you know? Eesh. So. Anyway. Snappy banter didn't exactly snap given the conventional speed of the time, so I got so bored I watched the last half of it at double speed, which messes up the sound and destroys any subtlety they might have been attempting. I kept on slowing it down and trying again, but no, could not.
So: I like the idea of everyone getting married solving everything. Trouble being the problems that got set up at the start didn't get solved on stage, they just got solved out of the way of everyone so they could get married. Tisn't the same thing. I mean, if the Duke that took over had the same personality at the end as at the start then he'd have killed off half the married couples, which would have made a mess of everything, and if the older brother stayed the ass we saw him be he's a very poor marriage indeed, however pretty she thinks him.
So blah, basically. With some good speeches.
I'm trying to sort out which bits I disliked were performance and which were Shakespeare.
For the writing, there were some great bits I've heard quoted out of context often, some good banter, lots of promising stuff with 'Ganymede', and some interesting politics around the edges. Unfortunately there was also a lot of really annoying songs, speeches nobody did anything with that seemed to have twice as many lines in them as they really needed, and politics that got set up without ever getting tied off. I mean, they start this thing with a dukedom usurped and people being done out of their inheritance and some attempted murder, and then everyone buggers off to the forest and sings until all the bad guys turn out to have turned into good guys, off stage, when nobody was looking. Also, a god turns up. For no readily apparent reason.
Performance killed most of the bits that would otherwise have been good. I watched the 1978 BBC version, and it had 1978 pacing and ACTing. There were two actors in the whole thing I'd be happy to watch again. Everyone else was at best not doing television. Also, I know he's writing in poetry, but if you HAVE to STRESS each ALTerNATing WORD it do get just a bit wearisome. There's ways and ways, you know? Eesh. So. Anyway. Snappy banter didn't exactly snap given the conventional speed of the time, so I got so bored I watched the last half of it at double speed, which messes up the sound and destroys any subtlety they might have been attempting. I kept on slowing it down and trying again, but no, could not.
So: I like the idea of everyone getting married solving everything. Trouble being the problems that got set up at the start didn't get solved on stage, they just got solved out of the way of everyone so they could get married. Tisn't the same thing. I mean, if the Duke that took over had the same personality at the end as at the start then he'd have killed off half the married couples, which would have made a mess of everything, and if the older brother stayed the ass we saw him be he's a very poor marriage indeed, however pretty she thinks him.
So blah, basically. With some good speeches.
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-01 05:43 pm (UTC)It's supposed to be social critique and affirmation, but I've always thought the play wasn't nearly as interesting as it could've been.